


Publisher Vows

by Not_You



Category: Watchmen (Comic)
Genre: Diary/Journal, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Gen, Ghosts, Male Friendship, Possession, Post-Karnak, Racist Language, Rorschach is fucking crazy, in an awesome kind of way, old fic, the new frontiersman is a pretty terrible paper, very grim fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-25
Updated: 2015-01-25
Packaged: 2018-03-09 00:30:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3229418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Not_You/pseuds/Not_You
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back on the kinkmeme, we had a habit of writing fics based on the captcha, because it almost always gave us something evocative, interesting, or so canon-related it was spooky.</p><p>So this is the one where Seymour makes some major life changes and Rorschach is back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Publisher Vows

The New Frontiersman doesn't fucking back down, and especially not to foreigners, is what Hector says the day after some suspiciously professional Malaysian guys almost kill him. Besides, God is on their side. That's what they say, but they all know it's Rorschach's ghost, walking the streets of post-Squid New York. There is no God, but there was a sudden wind that somehow kicked the shit out of four trained assassins (Hector insists that they were just fucking chinks hopped up on something, but Seymour knows better) and someone had shoved Seymour out of the way of a car a few weeks ago, when there had been no one there to do it. These things could be freak winds (really freak, It's like the goddamn government pretending their failed space experiments are weather balloons) or the effects of drugs or something, but that doesn't explain the other stuff.

When he had dug the journal out of the crank file, he had wound up taking it home because neither of them could read a word of it and he didn't want to throw it out. He has no idea now what they printed instead, because ever since it's kinda been all Journal, all the time. The capital is there because it's a special journal, sort of the way Bible just means book. As it was, he had gone home and sat there in the dark, dimly glad that it was fall, and he could close the window against the fetid breeze from Ground Zero.

He was gnawing on tandoori chicken, not as good as the Gunga Diner, but a welcome newcomer on a scene dominated by Burgers 'n' Borscht as he tried to read it again. He had noticed a spot on one page that was nearly the same color as the sauce on his own chicken, and a felt a moment of awed recognition. He wondered if they liked anything else in common, or if it had been desperation takeout, eaten from necessity over preference. He had a weird, visceral urge to lick it off the page, because it's probably the last sample of the Gunga Diner's food in the world (it has to have been from the Diner, they had actually said that Kovacs used to hang out there. The managers had remembered him, not that they had ever gotten to give more than one interview about it), but that would have be totally disgusting, so he didn't. He did crane the gooseneck lamp over to squint down at the page, and suddenly it was like a Magic Eye: it wasn't in code, the guy's handwriting had just been _terrible _. Suddenly, what he was looking at clicked. The cramped and arbitrary spacing seemed to even out just enough, and the weird-shaped letters suddenly made just enough vague sense to be figured out by context.__

___Rorschach's journal - February 3rd, 1985: Prostitute killed near home, guts in red and blue streamers that would have surely pleased Hollywood pornographers. World could always use fewer whores, but cannot condone. Very young girl. Might have had time to change._ _ _

__It was the first note in the book, and he had suddenly wondered about the dizzying array that must have come before it, wondering if they had been torn up or burned or tucked away to be discovered only by disconcertingly squid-shaped future archaeologists. Steam had wafted up from the takeout container and made him suddenly think of Chinese ghosts, placated with the scent of freshly-cooked offerings. _Not enough cumin._ Something had whispered in his ear, and dammit, he knows now that that was absolutely the beginning._ _

__After that had come the car and what he knows were assassins. He knows because he can hear Rorschach telling him so. Rorschach has taken to telling him a lot of things, and Seymour doesn't really know how to make him stop or if he actually wants him to. Because the voice of Rorschach gives them purpose. Not just Seymour, even though it's his ear the New Frontiersman's guardian spirit is whispering into. Their circulation has gone up, because even the liberal conspiracy theorists want a look at this one, and printing the Truth straight from the mouth of the one man who never gave up animates Hector and keeps him going in these dire times of international goodwill and local reconstruction._ _

__As for Seymour, he's on a diet. He doesn't want to be on one, but Rorschach bitches every time he goes for seconds, and sometimes takes over to run until they throw up and then to run some more. He is only a ghost. Seymour could ignore him. Could shove him back and eat entire pies, get electroshock therapy, or hell, just move, because no way will Rorschach leave his city. But he doesn't. He lets him drive, because Rorschach has all the grit and discipline he's never had. He's already seeing physical results, and he's smarter, with Rorschach hounding him to the library and noticing things for him. He can move objects, and can even rain undead wrath on people, but it takes all his energy, and it's easier for Seymour to do things for him. He's already stopped one mugging, and even though he tripped, Rorschach had told him he had done reasonably well for a beginner._ _

__Of course there's a third face. Months later Seymour's hands shake when he picks it up, but not after he puts it on. "Hurm." A pair of spotless gloves picks up a black fedora, neatly flicks a bit of lint from the brim, and sets it on Rorschach's head._ _

___What do you think of the hat?_ The trenchcoat is also black, and Seymour finds the effect to be full of funereal menace, and hopes Rorschach does likewise._ _

__"Like it. Good choice."_ _

__It pulls down satisfyingly low, and the scarf knots pristine white below the void of their face. Seymour's one good suit had actually made a dead man gag, so it's black slacks and a fitted button-down to match, the vest (Rorschach had insisted) also black. They look like a priest, or Death himself or some kind of terrible avenging angel. Rorschach still uses lifts, but they make him taller now, improving his already formidable looming skills. The scourge of the underworld has returned, and when they step out of the alley, the wind is almost sweet._ _


End file.
